In order to play a game of Fantasy Battles: 9th Age, you will first and foremost need to find a suitable opponent and agree on the terms of the game, such as game size and whether you will be using any additional rules. Both sides will compose an army using the rules from the “Choosing your Army” section above.

The game is played in a 72” wide and 48” deep battlefield area for the standard army size (1500-4000 points). For smaller battles (involving Warbands) we recommend a 36” wide and 48” deep size, and for bigger games (involving Grand Armies) the size will depend on how much bigger the army is. Even though some battles can take place on a completely open battlefield, usually the battlefield has a a few Terrain pieces placed upon it.

Both players can freely agree on the size, type and number of Terrain pieces to be placed, as well as their positions.
If you cannot reach an agreement, use the rules provided below to set up the battlefield for your game.

Divide the gaming board into sections of 12” x 12”

Place the following terrain pieces in the centre of a randomly decided section (max 1 piece in each section); one Building or Impassable Terrain (randomly decide which of the two), one Hill, one Forest. Then move each terrain piece 2D6” in a random direction.

Then, add 2D3 additional pieces of Terrain, following the rules above for their position, and roll a D6 and consult the table below to determine the kind of each of the additional terrain piece.

All terrain must be at least 6” away from any other terrain: Move them as little as possible from their rolled position to meet this criteria. If it is not possible to place the terrain more than 6” away from any other terrain, discard the problematic terrain

Recommended Terrain sizes are between 6” x 8” and 6” x 10”, except for walls which is 1” x 10”